Transgender candidate Misty Snow announces House bid in Utah

Misty Snow, the transgender candidate who made headlines last year with her unsuccessful bid to unseat Utah Sen. Mike Lee (R), has announced that she's running for the House.

In a Twitter message early Thursday, Snow announced her intention to run in the state's 2nd congressional district. The seat is currently occupied by Rep. Chris Stewart, a Republican who has been in office since 2013.

Despite her loss to Lee last year, Snow predicts President Trump's unpopularity will be high enough by 2018 to galvanize Democrats and sweep progressives like her into office.

She pointed to special elections this year in Georgia and Kansas, where Republicans have faced closer than expected races, in arguing that resistance to Trump has already started.

"Historically an unpopular president will cost his party seats in the house during midterms. We saw that in 2010 with Obama, and Trump is even less popular than Obama was," she explained.

Snow plans to target Stewart's "problematic" support for Trump's proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border as one of her campaign's central issues, as well as air pollution in Utah, which she calls a "huge problem."

She argued that her failed Senate bid left her more equipped to run for national office. She won the Democratic Party's nomination for Senate in Utah last year but was soundly defeated by Lee.

"I learned many things. I learned how to fundraise. I got much better at speaking, learned how to debate, learned how to get out the vote," she said, emphasizing the need to start campaigning earlier.

Snow received national media attention for being the first transgender woman to run for Senate in the U.S.

Her campaign platform was similar to that of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). She supported a laundry list of progressive causes including a $15 minimum wage, legalizing recreational marijuana and criminal justice reform.